The discomfiture sustained by the arms of the insurgents failed
not to react on the tone of feeling in their camp. The military
successes of Sertorius became like those of Hannibal, of necessity
less and less considerable; people began to call in question
his military talent: he was no longer, it was alleged,
what he had been; he spent the day in feasting or over his cups,
and squandered money as well as time. The number of the deserters,
and of communities falling away, increased.

Soon projects formed
by the Roman emigrants against the life of the general were reported
to him; they sounded credible enough, especially as various officers
of the insurgent army, and Perpenna in particular, had submitted
with reluctance to the supremacy of Sertorius, and the Roman
governors had for long promised amnesty and a high reward to any
one who should kill him. Sertorius, on hearing such allegations,
withdrew the charge of guarding his person from the Roman soldiers
and entrusted it to select Spaniards.

Against the suspected
themselves he proceeded with fearful but necessary severity,
and condemned various of the accused to death without resorting,
as in other cases, to the advice of his council; he was now
more dangerous--it was thereupon affirmed in the circles
of the malcontents--to his friends than to his foes.